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Karina Hilleard performs the psychologically unstable Lisa as an everyday girl with only the usual problems at her feet. It’s a refreshing look at how those with mental illness both suffer and cope.

Jennifer Minich – MD Theatre Guide

Memorable performances, brilliant staging, set and light design make The Wonderful World of Dissocia a must see experience for the adventurous theatregoer or anyone who wants to take a break from reality.

Dressed youthfully in a floral-pattern dress and tights, her hair in a braid, Hilleard’s Lisa is an appealing protagonist, by turns persuasively plucky, infuriated and anxious.

BENCHED – PINKYSWEAR PRODUCTIONS

Washington Post – Jane Horwitz

And the newest mom, Timby (Karina Hilleard), positively buzzes with anxiety over her parenting skills and decorating choices. In a series of scenes that arc across months, “Benched” grows less giggly as life pulls the three friends in different directions and reaches a poignant conclusion. Under Matt Ripa’s staging, the three actors ace the Washington-based Currin’s comic dialogue while lending emotional weight to characters that might come off as shallow.

Debbie Minter Jackson – DC Theatre Scene

Karina Hilleard, playing first mom Timby, wheels her baby stroller around like a precision speed racer, but even her gorgeous clipped British accent can’t cover her anxiety and insecurity as a former decorator unable to commit to her living room color scheme.

Hilleard is at her best here with a tone and stance that reads, ‘I have to defend myself against men who already think I’m not qualified for the position, and now women as well?’

Brett Steven Albelman – DC Theatre Scene

McGinnis and her unflagging ensemble make cracking open the Pandora’s Box of Churchill’s masterwork look easy.

Andre Hereford – Metro weekly

Hilleard, meanwhile, makes a riveting Marlene, leading the story forward into Thatcher’s England, where she and several other ladies toil at a London employment agency. Again, McGinnis and the cast mine sharp comedy from the rapport of Marlene and her mates, while delivering pointed portrayals of several female clients who seek better prospects at the agency.

Karina Hilleard provides a telling spark as the anxious Duchess of York. (Hilleard’s native English accent is a bonus. I wish the other actors had tried to match it; Shakespeare’s English history plays lose a lot when delivered in a flat American sound.)

April Forrer – MD Theatre Guide

It is exceedingly difficult to achieve a breakout performance as a female character in one of Shakespeare’s history plays, but Karina Hilleard did so as the Duchess of York.

Amanda N Gunther – Theatre Bloom

Even in Shakespeare’s tragedy there is comedy to be had. While it doesn’t escalate until the second act, the Duke of York (Michael P. Sullivan) the Duchess (Karina Hilleard) and their son the Duke of Aumerle (Sèamus Miller) come to a rousing head in a scene of chase played out first in the Duke’s home and later at the foot of Bolingbroke. Hilleard’s maternal badgering and pleas are hilarious as she combats first her husband and later Bolingbroke on behalf of her son. Miller, who expresses a great deal of painstaking woe once accused of unsavory indiscretions, is a sturdy, albeit reserved, actor who delivers on cue in the moment.

DRUNKLE VANYA – LIVEART DC

Alan Katz – DC Theatre Scene

There’s Vanya, with cross-gender cast Karina Hilleard playing the character with equal parts rage and snark

John Stotenberg – DC Metro Theatre Arts

The playful cast was enjoyable to watch as they maneuvered among the patrons, earnestly declaiming their characters’ assorted angsts and confronting each other as up-close and personal as performance art gets.